


for your hair was full of roses, and my flesh was full of thorns

by bellmare



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Dark Month, Dubious Consent, F/M, flower symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-29
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:53:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellmare/pseuds/bellmare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for your hair was full of roses, and my flesh was full of thorns

**Author's Note:**

> For Dark Month, 2012. A very vague take (??) on the prompt, "And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back at you".
> 
> Contains gratuitous flower imagery and -- gasp! -- allusions to Persona 3 which you do not have to tilt your head and squint at.

Whatever he touches, decay blooms; it spreads, seeking and squirming and foul and much as she tries, she can’t escape.

 

It’s a paradox, a dissonance between what he is and what he should be – Marluxia should be life and vitality, the cool crispness of leaves against her skin and the scent of honeysuckle and clover in the wind. Instead, he is the sickly sweetness of lily-of-the-valley, of wilting blooms shriveling in the sun, cracking dry and papery at her touch.

 

There is no escape from him, not from the vines which string her up by her wrists; not from their cruel thorns tangled in her hair, not  from the fingers which lovingly stroke her chin and grip her jaw and force her head up to meet his eyes. _Cherie,_ he whispers into her mouth as she shivers against his palms and tries to forget. His hands tracing the curves her spine leaves trails of flowers in their wake – begonia, jonquil, arbutus, chrysanthemum, blooming bright and stark against her skin. When she pulls away from his kisses, there are marigolds and hydrangea on her tongue; she spits them back out, one by one, and even as they tumble down and the air rots them, she loses count.

 

She’s learned not to cry, not to make a sound, because his mock concern will be the most galling of all – he wears too many masks but she knows which ones he reserves for her alone. _Don’t break for me,_ he says almost fondly as she wraps herself around him despite herself and bursts into bloom, thriving and vibrant with life. She’s guilty, deep down when he kisses her chastely on the forehead and gently rubs the rows of thorn-pricks on her wrists to soothe the sting.

 

.

 

The time seeps between her fingers, like soft sand. Luxord’s visits become intermittent; the shadows grow and lengthen in his eyes and he no longer smiles when he sees her. “I’m sorry, dove,” he says quietly. “For there is little that I can do.”

 

She peels his gloves off and wrap her hands around his, and stares at the curves of his knuckles. “Please don’t worry about me,” she says. “I’m sorry too.”

 

Before he leaves, he shuffles out his cards for her. “Pick one,” he says. “Any one.”

 

It’s not his usual deck – she knows that much when she draws a card and flips it over – it's blank, save for a row of letters, printed on the bottom. “The Tower,” she says. “What’s this?”

 

Luxord’s mouth narrows to a thin line. “There was a world I went to, once. A world of green-washed night and coffins. It had Heartless and Nobodies, too, but not as we know them. One of them spoke to me and told me this: _the Arcana is the means by which all is revealed. Entrusting his future to the cards, man clings to a dim hope._ ”

 

The card feels hot and cold between her fingertips. “What does it mean? The Tower, and what that Heartless told you?”

 

He smiles faintly, bitterly; his hands are restless, fanning out the cards and shuffling them, over and over. “Whatever you want to make it mean.”

 

.

 

She draws.

 

She draws to forget.

 

The card is her new canvas, empty space for her to fill when she is not working, when Marluxia is occupied and out of reach. She draws towers and spires at first, but it’s not enough – it’s never enough and never right because nothing happens even when she wills the paper and inks and graphite to respond to her touch, the card remains just that – a card.

 

When she draws, though, she tires more easily than she did before. She notices only when she stares down at another failed attempt and erases everything and her world trembles and warps. When she doubles over and retches into her hands, sprigs of bird’s-foot trefoil fall from between her fingers, heavy with the stench of lavender.

 

.

 

She falls apart as the days pass, as she divides her time between filling in the card and her sketch-books. In turn, they draw her out, piece by piece as she wishes for a way for everything to end. The memory-witch unravels and sheds memories like a snakeskin, leaving them scattered on the floor around her.  She’s unfurling at the edges, faster than she can work. They’re running her ragged in their quest to make Sora forget, and it shows in the way she can feel her body dissolving and peeling away, in fragile petals and bending stalks. She suspects it’s the ivy and thistle tangling around her skin and bones that keep her together, the blooms nestled in her ribcage that gives her the tickle in her lungs that forces her to keep breathing. She's gotten tired of looking at herself, tired of picking the petals out of her hair, tired of rubbing at the periwinkle shadows ringing her eyes.

 

When she runs her fingers through her hair, she finds flax and verbena and peonies entangled in the strands; when she rubs her shoulders to keep warm in the empty white rooms her nails tear through buds of witch-hazel and red columbine. Away from the prying eyes of the others, she swaddles herself in a coat like theirs.

 

 _Make it stop,_ she says to herself as she huddles in her room and fills in the empty spaces left on the card. _Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop._

 

.

 

She knows when her prayer’s answered because it’s when she’s poured enough of herself into the card, when her fingertips shed aconite petals and laurel leaves onto the thick paper and their branches extend up her palms and wrists and creep into her sleeves in recognition of her wish.

 

 _I wished for ruin, and I only have myself to blame_ , she thinks, and laughs. Her laughter brings hiccoughs, and with them a cascade of hyacinths and foxglove amaranth that catch in her throat.

 

It’s time.

 

.

 

He doesn’t recognise her at first – not with the hood drawn low over her face, not until she lowers it and gazes steadily at him, lilacs and forget-me-not carded through her hair, garish and bright as crayons against her faded watercolours.

 

“Are you not afraid?” he asks. He stands far too loosely, the handle of his scythe cradled in his palm. “Of what you became, of what you’re going to become?”

 

She fingers the card in her pocket, nestled amongst gladiolus petals. “I knew this would happen. Nothing is ever without a price.”

 

His mouth twists and the scythe is spinning, gouging the stone floor. “And you think it was worth it, witch? To destroy me, and to destroy yourself?”

 

 _Forget,_ she whispers, an anathema on the tip of her tongue. _Forget it all._

 

The vines twist and weave before her and the scythe-blade embeds itself harmlessly in them. Marluxia hisses and moves to summon it back but she’s ready for him; ivy winds itself around him, turning against the master it abandoned. She shrugs off the coat, shedding twigs and new buds with it; flowers bloom in her wake, lobelia and lilies filling her footsteps.

 

“So this is why you were silent,” he says. The thorns nick his throat when he speaks. She nods; the handle of his scythe bumps against her knuckles and she holds it instinctively, pulling it from the grasp of a vine which curls affectionately against her ankles like a tame pet.

 

“Is this an end you will be satisfied with?” he says, far too calmly. “Becoming one and the same as me?”

 

She closes her eyes. If she doesn’t think too much about it, the scythe is a little like a paint brush, familiar in faint, half-recognised ways. She wonders if he ever dreamt of this, of one of the myriad ways he would die, with the bruised-orchid girl holding his scythe in her thin hands. She imagines painting a brushstroke across a page, smooth and clean, and swings.

 

When she opens her eyes, she’s alone in the room – save for poppies and roses, garishly red and puddled on the floor.


End file.
